Moonbase

According to Reuters, Pope Benedict XVI and his formal doctoral students have unexpectedly decided to publish the proceedings of this year’s Schuelerkreis, where the topic was evolution. A yearly open-ended discussion between the former professor and his students on a chosen topic, the Schuelerkreis has no special religious significance, though hopefully it should prompt some much-needed philosophical discussion.

Since the Reuters article does do a better job than most of summing up the Church’s position on these things, I think it’s worth quoting at length:

Unlike creationists who oppose the theory of evolution, the Catholic Church does not read literally the Biblical account of God creating the world in six days.

Benedict and Schoenborn have said several times over the past year that intelligence in the form of God’s will played a part in creation and that neo-Darwinists who deny God any role are drawing an ideological conclusion not proven by the theory.

They say they use philosophical reasoning to conclude that God created the world, not arguments which intelligent design supporters claim can be proven scientifically.

“There’s a controversy in the United States because there is a lack of awareness of a thing called philosophy,” said [Father Joseph Fessio, S.J., an attendee], whose Ignatius Press publishes Benedict’s books in English.

The only minor quibble I have with the reporter’s summary is that while the Church doesn’t interpret the first chapter of Genesis “literally” in the colloquial sense of the word (i.e. the way Fundamentalists generally do), nor in a way that would appear to conflict with science, She does take it very seriously, and not soley as a spiritual metaphor. If you’re interested in a more thorough treatment of that subject, I might recommend Reading Genesis with Cardinal Ratzinger, which I linked to in an earlier post.